A Beginner’s Guide to WordPress

This guide to WordPress will provide you with a basic overview of the platform and tips as well. This free general content management system remains popular with freelance workers and small businesses for its renowned simplicity and ease of use.

However, not all find this tool simple to use. If you need a service like WordPress to get your feet under you, you could be limited by your ability to deal with the unfamiliar problems to come. Additionally, if you have minimal experience using internet services, then these problems will likely frustrate you or halt your site’s progression.

1. Registering Your Domain

Your first step will involve registering your domain name. Don’t panic though. Your domain name is simply the name of your website, which will appear when people seek you out on the web.

First, you will have to consider what your unique domain name should be. Domain names should sum up or match whatever the name of your business or service entails. If you have difficulties deciding on a domain name, find websites similar to what you want and use them for inspiration.

Stay alert for potential difficulty arising when registering your domain name.

Registering your domain name has been made infinitely simpler over the past several years through many different service providers.

However, you should use Bluehost for your WordPress blog or website. Bluehost’s unique compatibility with WordPress will enable you to register your unique domain name and easily use it for your WordPress site with minimal costs.

2. Hosting Your Site

Hosting your site is the next step you will take in the WordPress process, but don’t worry it’s even simpler than the last step.

There are a variety of available web hosting options for your WordPress site, and you should choose whichever has the support you want for your budget. However, this stage in the process matters less than the others, especially if you used Bluehost to register your domain, so don’t invest too much time into it.

3. Learning Your Terms

Knowing your technical terms is the next step you should take after registering your domain and hosting service. While not vital, knowing the different terms can make an incredible difference on how comfortable you feel and the efficiency of your work.

Even though many terms are common over different internet services, many people do not have experience in such matters. Take note of these essential terms you need to know:

• Author: the main contributor to a WordPress site with exclusive powers to write and edit content as well as change settings.
• Contributor: other writers affiliated with a WordPress site with limited powers to write and edit only their own content
• Search Engine Optimization(SEO): a technique of increasing user engagement by increasing representation in web searches.

If you have the time, you should look over a more comprehensive list of WordPress terms. These terms aren’t necessary to know by heart, but having them accessible will help the process run smoothly.

4. Selecting Your Theme

Selecting the theme of your WordPress site is the next step you should take. Don’t take this step lightly! WordPress comes with pre-made designs for your site, known as themes, which you can use to tailor your site to your needs.

You should think carefully about your theme. Look at similar websites again and attempt to create an appropriate and professional theme. You can play around with it and change it whenever you want. Customize different themes to help your site look exactly the way you want.

5. Installing Your Plugins

Plugins are essential for your WordPress site. However, beginners of content management often ignore this aspect to their site.

Plugins are extra features offered by WordPress which you can include on your site. These improve your site’s functionality for either yourself or your users. For example:

• Floating Social Bar: this increases the functionality of your site by adding an easy to use social media button. This encourages users to share your site through their social media and has the potential to increase engagement.
• AdSanity: this creates extensive options for you to personalize advert type and space alongside providing analytics on how effective your adverts are. This will improve your marketing and enable you to edit both content and advertisements to boost profits.

These are some of the useful plugins WordPress and independent developers provide for you to use.

Choose whichever best suits your site, and don’t overthink. You can easily reverse any changes you make.

6. Creating Your Pages

The next step involves choosing pages for your WordPress site. These pages are vitally important to the success of your site, so make them a priority on your list.

• Home Page: this page should acknowledge your major points, but still appear eye-catching to your audience
• About Page: this page should include contact information alongside a detailed background of yourself or your company, humanizing you and reassuring your visitors
• Legal Page: this page should include information legally necessary for your business, such as terms of service and your refund policy if selling a product or service. This is an important legal requirement and will limit your payment options if incorrectly completed.

While these are the most important pages you should consider, still dabble with experimentation. Include whatever you think could work, and if it doesn’t then change it. Do not forgo this impressive flexibility of your WordPress site.

7. Writing Your Posts

Your posts are particularly important if you are running a WordPress blog, but still somewhat relevant to a website.

You should write these with informative categories and headlines, making sure visitors who want to engage with your content are given a full chance. This also plays into Search Engine Optimization, as it increases the chance of representation your WordPress site can receive in search engines through relevant content.

Make sure your posts are written efficiently and effectively. You want to include all major points, but not bog the reader down in details.

Variety is also essential to writing your posts. Mix up what you are doing by incorporating pictures, graphs, or added textual details like making your text bold or italicized.

8. Update!

Your final step in completing your WordPress site is to update the content and design of it continually. Never stagnate yourself by failing to write clever and clear content continually or by minimizing your site’s design aspects with an outdated design.

Conclusion

• Register a catchy domain name for your site
• Choose a hosting service for your site
• Learn technical terms
• Select your site’s theme
• Install plugins to your site
• Create the pages that you need
• Write a variety of relevant posts to your site
• Constantly update your site’s content